HSBC and Hang Seng Bank will step up recruitment in Hong Kong, the mainland and other parts of Asia, Apple Daily reports. Peter Wong Tung-shun, CEO of HSBC, Asia-Pacific, says the group plans to hire at least 300 to 400 people. Hang Seng has twice raised some employees' salaries in order to retain key staff.

Mainland graduates go job-hopping

Young people on the mainland, who graduated from college in 2006, have changed jobs an average of two times within the first three years of their careers, China Daily reports. A report by education consultancy Mycos found that 88 per cent of these changes were voluntary. Thirty-three per cent of respondents changed jobs for better career prospects, 25 per cent left due to low salaries and 13 per cent wanted to be in a new profession. 

Cardboard sign lands unemployed man a job

An unemployed man landed a job by standing in pouring rain by a busy road with a cardboard sign pleading: "Please give me a job", The Daily Telegraph reports. Twenty-three-year-old Mark Wheeldon could not believe his luck when, within three hours of standing by the road, a passing businessman offered him a job. Vince Champion, director of a timber factory, spotted the former mechanic on his way to work and returned to collect him, giving him an interview straightaway and offering him a position just 20 minutes later.